The present disclosure relates to an image forming apparatus suitable for reading of a document.
A reading system for a document by a typical image forming apparatus, such as MFP (Multifunction Peripherals) and a printer, includes a sheet feeding system that reads a document conveyed at a regular speed by a read head including a fixedly disposed light source and a line sensor.
Since the sheet feeding system is unable to check a conveying state of the document, it is not easy to determine a relationship between a direction of the document and a direction of the read head. For this reason, especially, in the event that a direction of the document, on only one side of which printing is applied (hereinafter referred to as a single-sided document), is inadvertently set by mistake (hereinafter referred appropriately to as a set error), it will occur a situation where a back side of a surface a user wants to be read (surface on which printing is applied) is read. Incidentally, if the back side of the surface the user wants to be read (surface on which printing is applied) is a blank paper, it follows that the surface of the blank paper is read.
For the sheet feeding system, the system allows an automatic feeding of a plurality of documents by an ADF (Automatic Document Feeder). If once a direction of all the single-sided documents is inadvertently set by mistake, a surface of the blank paper of all the documents is read.
Incidentally, as for copy processing, when image data of the document read by the read head is printed on a copier paper, and output after the image data is subjected to image processing, a user can become aware of a set error of the document by checking that printing is not applied on the copier paper. In contrast, when image data of the document read by the read head is transmitted or distributed after the image data is subjected to the image processing, as in the case of facsimile transmission processing and scanner distribution processing, it not seldom happens that a user cannot become aware of a set error of the document until a recipient points out the set error.
Meanwhile, other typical image forming apparatus determines whether a document is a blank paper or not from the image data generated by reading an image of the top page of the document, and if a blank paper is detected, displays information on the detection of the blank paper on a liquid crystal touch panel.